We Offer

• Payment within 24 hours of receiving your items
• A do it yourself option
• Payments deposited directly to your bank account

Sell Your Platinum to Us in 3 Easy Steps

1. Fill out our form, to print out your own overnight shipping label. No Printer? call us at 1-877-465-3720.
2. Take your platinum and your label to your nearest FedEx® or Kinko’s location for free insured shipping.
3. We will appraise your items and issue payment within 24 hours of receiving your PlatinumPaq™.

*If you have oversized or bulk scrap platinum to sell, please contact us or give us a call at 1-877-465-3720 and we’ll arrange a courier service for you.

When it comes to selling platinum the first step is to find it. In all honesty the best platinum to sell is in the form of broken and old jewelry. If you have a broken platinum bracelet that has languished in your jewelry box, or perhaps and old ring missing gemstones, these are ideal for selling online. Don’t worry if they are not pure platinum. Even platinum that is used too accentuate a gold or silver ring will increase the value of the piece. We at PlatinumPaq are far more concerned about metal content than about how it all looks.

The one thing you want to make sure you do is not sell your platinum to a pawn shop. Pawn shops are notorious for not only giving sub standard prices, but they often are located in dangerous areas and do little to protect their customers. It is our advice that you sell your metal online. Not just because we do business online, but because selling your platinum online is much safer. Sure we can’t get you the money the same day, but if you sell your platinum too us we will have money to you within a pretty quick time frame.

For the most part, when you are checking out a platinum seller such as PlatinumPaq, you want to find out if you can get hold of a live person. If the best you can do is find an email address then chances are the company is less than reputable. If you can get in contact with a live person, see if they are friendly and courteous. Many pawn shops have set up web sites that look nice, but you want to always avoid these places. You can almost guarantee you are talking to a pawn shop owner if they are cold, unfriendly or rude on the phone. You don’t need to be treated badly.

PlatinumPaq will also always use an insured mailer to conduct business. This is a way of protecting your platinum as well as our integrity. If for some reason you jewelry gets lost in the mail, it is insured so you don’t loose out on anything. Most pawn shops disguising themselves as legitimate precious metal buyers don’t offer insured mailers and in many cases will insist you pay the cost of shipping. We pay the cost of shipping which is just another way we try to make the process as easy as possible.

Once you send your jewelry off in the mail the next step is for an appraiser to call you. Again you can know you are being taken advantage of by some quick research. Go to www.kitco.com and look at what platinum is selling for an ounce. Ask the appraiser how much weight in platinum they have. If their offer is only 10-15% of full value, you are being ripped off. While it is impossible to give you full value for your platinum jewelry (after all we have several expenses to cover ourselves) you deserve a fair value. Don’t be afraid to say no too the offer. Most pawn shops and other dishonest metal buyers will try to convince you that you are getting a good deal. Don’t believe them.

In the end the most important thing to remember is to not sell anything that has a great emotional value to you. While things are pretty tough right now, chances are the markets and our economy will bounce back pretty soon. For this reason getting rid of things that you places a high value on may not go how you would like them too. Also saving your high value jewelry for another time will mean that if things do not improve you still have your best items to sell. Sure things may not be perfectly comfortable right now, but chances are things are not that horrible either. Be smart, patient, and controlled in your attempts to sell platinum. You will thank yourself for it later.

When it comes to selling platinum the first step is to find it. In all honesty the best platinum to sell is in the form of broken and old jewelry. If you have a broken platinum bracelet that has languished in your jewelry box, or perhaps and old ring missing gemstones, these are ideal for selling online. Don’t worry if they are not pure platinum. Even platinum that is used too accentuate a gold or silver ring will increase the value of the piece. We at PlatinumPaq are far more concerned about metal content than about how it all looks.

The one thing you want to make sure you do is not sell your platinum to a pawn shop. Pawn shops are notorious for not only giving sub standard prices, but they often are located in dangerous areas and do little to protect their customers. It is our advice that you sell your metal online. Not just because we do business online, but because selling your platinum online is much safer. Sure we can’t get you the money the same day, but if you sell your platinum too us we will have money to you within a pretty quick time frame.

For the most part, when you are checking out a platinum seller such as PlatinumPaq, you want to find out if you can get hold of a live person. If the best you can do is find an email address then chances are the company is less than reputable. If you can get in contact with a live person, see if they are friendly and courteous. Many pawn shops have set up web sites that look nice, but you want to always avoid these places. You can almost guarantee you are talking to a pawn shop owner if they are cold, unfriendly or rude on the phone. You don’t need to be treated badly.

PlatinumPaq will also always use an insured mailer to conduct business. This is a way of protecting your platinum as well as our integrity. If for some reason you jewelry gets lost in the mail, it is insured so you don’t loose out on anything. Most pawn shops disguising themselves as legitimate precious metal buyers don’t offer insured mailers and in many cases will insist you pay the cost of shipping. We pay the cost of shipping which is just another way we try to make the process as easy as possible.

Once you send your jewelry off in the mail the next step is for an appraiser to call you. Again you can know you are being taken advantage of by some quick research. Go to www.kitco.com and look at what platinum is selling for an ounce. Ask the appraiser how much weight in platinum they have. If their offer is only 10-15% of full value, you are being ripped off. While it is impossible to give you full value for your platinum jewelry (after all we have several expenses to cover ourselves) you deserve a fair value. Don’t be afraid to say no too the offer. Most pawn shops and other dishonest metal buyers will try to convince you that you are getting a good deal. Don’t believe them.

In the end the most important thing to remember is to not sell anything that has a great emotional value to you. While things are pretty tough right now, chances are the markets and our economy will bounce back pretty soon. For this reason getting rid of things that you places a high value on may not go how you would like them too. Also saving your high value jewelry for another time will mean that if things do not improve you still have your best items to sell. Sure things may not be perfectly comfortable right now, but chances are things are not that horrible either. Be smart, patient, and controlled in your attempts to sell platinum. You will thank yourself for it later.

But is this the case for every precious metal? Gold and silver have been around since civilization itself, offering a backbone to commerce systems and providing for the currency of economies. Platinum, however, is a much more rare metal - thirty times as rare as gold - that hasn’t enjoyed such an ancient history. Because it is rare, platinum was discovered by the Western world much later than gold and silver, and also has an added mystique of mysterious value and intrinsic worth.

So in order to read up on our platinum history, we have two fundamental questions to answer: Who discovered platinum - and when?

Who Discovered Platinum?

Asking who discovered platinum is a complicated question that needs a complicated answer. Does “discovery” mean the first person who laid eyes on it? Or does discovery mean the first person who realized that platinum was not silver or some other metal they were already familiar with?

If discovery means the first person to lay eyes on platinum, we don’t know for sure - just as we might be exactly sure of the first person to lay eyes on the New World. We do know that platinum occurs naturally on our planet, meaning it has been around for ages, and that it probably existed in a fairly natural state in ancient times.

Some of the earliest evidence of platinum being used by people was in Pre-Columbian America, when Native Americans utilized platinum in a gold-platinum alloy used in creating artifacts. But if we define “discovery” of platinum as someone who realized that platinum was actually its own metal, we’re not sure if we could call these early users of platinum actual “discoverers.”

Columbus came, and with him came the Old World to the New, and with this transition came plenty of discoveries about the nature of our planet and what it contains. One of these new mysteries, to Europeans, was the presence of platinum, which became a mysterious metal. In 1557, Italian humanist Julius Caesar Scaliger described platinum as an unknown and mysterious metal with some outstanding qualities, like a high melting point. So at least by this time, platinum had been discovered as its own separate metal.

And when?

We’re getting a closer look at the actual people who helped discover platinum, but now the answer of “when” comes into play, as well. After people had become aware of this precious, mysterious metal after the discovery of the New World, study was delayed until the 18th Century. At this time, Charles Wood, who was a British metallurgist, found platinum in Jamaica and sent it off ot a colleague, William Brownrigg, for closer study.

A man named Antonio de Ulloa, also credited as an early discoverer of platinum, went to Spain on return from a mission in the Americas. Ulloa wrote an account of his times in the Americas that detailed the existence of platinum, as well as showed his expectation that platinum mines would eventually be discovered.

Brownrigg, also in the mid-18th century, was able to present a study on the element to the British government, detailing its qualities, and mentioning that there was no previous account of platinum in the list of known minerals. After this presentation, more chemists began studying platinum, and throughout the late 18th century, more and more discoveries about platinum were made, delving further into its properties and its qualities.

So no direct credit can be given to any particular discoverer of platinum, since many people have had a hand in both finding it and explaining its existence. Further studies proved that platinum was indeed an element, number 78 on the periodic table, and its grayish white color has been referred to as “white gold.”

Today, platinum is still known as one of the rarest of precious metals, difficult to find and extract but with a durability suitable for the Hope diamond, and for royalty. It also retains a special status as describing the elite in our culture, such as “platinum blond” or a “platinum album.” It says a lot about platinum that the “platinum” album is between the gold and diamond labellings, and it reflects just how rare and precious a metal platinum really is.

If you have platinum in your possession, don’t be afraid to take it to an online metal broker like PlatinumPaq for an appraisal and a fair offer on the amount of platinum your articles contain.

But even if platinum is so rare, it has to be found somewhere, right? After all, no one would have discovered platinum if it was so rare that it was nearly impossible to find. Indeed, platinum is one of the rare metals on Earth - so rare that even bolide craters have a higher percentage of platinum than most soil on Earth.

Well, the answer is that platinum is indeed found in some places, but the limited amount of places it’s found (and in the limited quantities it’s found) make it a truly unique metal. Here are some of the places platinum is found in the world.

South Africa

South Africa is famous for its mines and for some of the precious metals and stones that it exports, and platinum is not an exception to that trend in this case. In fact, platinum is actually found in higher quantities in South Africa than just about any other place on Earth, which just adds that much more to the mystique of what lies beneath the soil in South Africa.

Platinum occurs in a very rare formation in South Africa, in what’s known as a sulfide mineral cooperite. Platinum occurs there with palladium and nickel, and these platinum extractions make up the largest primary reserves of platinum in the world. No where else on earth is platinum known to exist in such quantities.

In 2005, South Africa held about an 80% share of the production of platinum, with Russia and Canada both trailing by a distant margin.

Russia

After South Africa, one of the largest sources of platinum is Russia, at copper-nickel deposits near Norilsk. Although in Russia, these quantities don’t occur in the same frequency as the source in South Africa, this is still considered one of the largest deposits in the world, as platinum often is found with these other metals.

Canada

Like Russia, Canada has a natural platinum source that comes with another large ore, in this case the nickel ore found in the Sudbury Basin. Even with this large ore of nickel, platinum only makes up a small part of the metal present, further helping illustrate the real rarity of platinum.

Craters

Although other trace amounts of platinum are found in places like Montana, it is interesting to note that platinum is found in more abundance in bolides (meteors) and the Moon. For this reason, platinum is sometimes found at impact craters where bolides collided with the earth. These places aren’t treasure troves for platinum, but platinum is found to exist in higher percentages in these craters.

A quick look at where platinum exists gives a hint into its nature as one of our rarest metals. Looking at a map of all of the places platinum occurs in significant amounts, one can’t help but notice all of the places where platinum is actually not occurring, which is the vast majority of the map.

Like other precious metals, platinum is often found with other metals like nickel and copper, so platinum is actually usually not found in exclusively platinum mines, but instead large nickel ores. This, however, doesn’t mean that platinum will always be abundant in these types of ores, as there are other variables involved.

If you have platinum in your possession, you now have an understanding of the rarity at which it occurs, as well as the difficulty in finding platinum and putting it to commercial use. For this reason, you can give your platinum to an online metal broker for a very fair price, as they are looking for precious metals that can be recycled, melted down, and put to industrial use. Don’t treat platinum as a common commodity, because it is actually very hard to find - instead, recycle your old or broken platinum jewelry.

If you’re interested in recycling your old or broken jewelry - including precious metals like silver and gold - then check out PlatinumPaq. PlatinumPaq will be able to provide you with insured mailing for the safe packaging of your platinum, gold, or silver in your possession. They will then be able to look at the precious metals you have and make an honest appraisal of them. Be sure to check out this option if you have any jewelry that’s not being put to use - you can even use the money to donate to charity. Remember to keep an open mind about precious metals and you will be able to put even your broken jewelry to use.